Contents

Early career

Nicolas Steno was born in Copenhagen on New Year’s Day (Julian calendar), the son of a Lutherangoldsmith who worked regularly for King Christian IV of Denmark. Stensen grew up in isolation in his childhood, because of an unknown disease. In 1644 his father died, after which his mother remarried another goldsmith. In 1654–1655, 240 pupils of his school died because of the plague. Across the street lived Peder Schumacher, (who would offer Steno a post as professor in Copenhagen in 1671). After completing his university education, Steno set out to travel through Europe; in fact, he would be on the move for the rest of his life. In the Netherlands, France, Italy and Germany he came into contact with prominent physicians and scientists. These influences led him to use his own powers of observation to make important scientific discoveries. At a time when scientific questions were mostly answered by appeal to ancient authorities, Steno was bold enough to trust his own eyes, even when his observations differed from traditional doctrines.

Contributions to paleontology and geology

Illustration from Steno’s 1667 paper comparing the teeth of a shark head with a fossil tooth

In October 1666 two fishermen caught a huge female shark near the town of Livorno, and Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, ordered its head to be sent to Steno. Steno dissected the head and published his findings in 1667. He noted that the shark’s teeth bore a striking resemblance to certain stony objects, found embedded within rock formations, that his learned contemporaries were calling glossopetrae or “tongue stones”. Ancient authorities, such as the Roman author Pliny the Elder, in his Naturalis Historia, had suggested that these stones fell from the sky or from the Moon. Others were of the opinion, also following ancient authors, that fossils naturally grew in the rocks. Steno’s contemporary Athanasius Kircher, for example, attributed fossils to a “lapidifying virtue diffused through the whole body of the geocosm”, considered an inherent characteristic of the earth — an Aristotelian approach. Fabio Colonna, however, had already shown in a convincing way that glossopetrae are shark teeth,[7] in his treaty De glossopetris dissertatio published in 1616.[8] Steno added to Colonna’s theory a discussion on the differences in composition between glossopetrae and living sharks’ teeth, arguing that the chemical composition of fossils could be altered without changing their form, using the contemporary corpuscular theory of matter.

Steno’s work on shark teeth led him to the question of how any solid object could come to be found inside another solid object, such as a rock or a layer of rock. The “solid bodies within solids” that attracted Steno’s interest included not only fossils, as we would define them today, but minerals, crystals, encrustations, veins, and even entire rock layers or strata. He published his geologic studies in De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus, or Preliminary discourse to a dissertation on a solid body naturally contained within a solid in 1669. Steno was not the first to identify fossils as being from living organisms; his contemporaries Robert Hooke and John Ray also argued that fossils were the remains of once-living organisms.

Steno, in his Dissertationis prodromus of 1669 is credited with three of the defining principles of the science of stratigraphy: the law of superposition: “…at the time when any given stratum was being formed, all the matter resting upon it was fluid, and, therefore, at the time when the lower stratum was being formed, none of the upper strata existed”; the principle of original horizontality: “Strata either perpendicular to the horizon or inclined to the horizon were at one time parallel to the horizon”; the principle of lateral continuity: “Material forming any stratum were continuous over the surface of the Earth unless some other solid bodies stood in the way”; and the principle of cross-cutting discontinuities: “If a body or discontinuity cuts across a stratum, it must have formed after that stratum.”[9] These principles were applied and extended in 1772 by Jean-Baptiste L. Romé de l’Isle. Steno’s landmark theory that the fossil record was a chronology of different living creatures in different eras was a sine qua non for Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Another principle, known simply as Steno’s law, or Steno’s law of constant angles, states that the angles between corresponding faces on crystals are the same for all specimens of the same mineral, a fundamental breakthrough that formed the basis of all subsequent inquiries into crystal structure.[10]

Religious studies

Steno’s questioning mind also influenced his religious views. Having been brought up in the Lutheran faith, he nevertheless questioned its teachings, something which became a burning issue when confronted with Roman Catholicism while studying in Florence. After making comparative theological studies, including reading the Church Fathers and by using his natural observational skills, he decided that Catholicism, rather than Lutheranism, provided more sustenance for his constant inquisitiveness. Steno converted to Catholicism on All Souls’ Day when Lavinia Cenami Arnolfini insisted.

In 1684 Steno moved to Hamburg, after an argument about the election of the new bishop, Maximilian Henry of Bavaria. There Steno became involved again in the study of the brain and the nerve system with an old friend Dirck Kerckring. Steno was invited to Schwerin, when it became clear he was not accepted in Hamburg. Steno dressed like a poor man in an old cloak. He drove in an open carriage in snow and rain. Living four days a week on bread and beer, he became emaciated.[14] When Steno had fulfilled his mission, some years of difficult tasks, he wanted to go back to Italy. Before he could return, Steno became severely ill, his belly swelling day by day. Steno died in Germany, after much suffering. His corpse was shipped by Kerckring to Florence and buried in the Basilica of San Lorenzo close to his protectors, the De’ Medici family. In 1953 his grave was discovered, and the corpse (without the missing skull) was reburied after a procession through the streets of the city.[15]

Legacy

Steno’s life and work has been studied, in particular in relation to the developments in geology in the late nineteenth century. His piety and virtue have been especially evaluated with a view to an eventual canonization. In 1953 his corpse was exhumed, and reburied in the Capella Stenoniana, but without the missing skull. The Italian state donated a fourth-century Christian sarcophagus that had been found in the river Arno. In 1987 he was declared “beatus” – the first step to being declared a saint – by Pope John Paul II. He is thus now called by Catholics Blessed Nicolas Steno.

The Steno Museum in Århus, Denmark, named after Nicolas Steno, holds exhibitions on the history of science and medicine.[16] It also operates a planetarium and a medicinal herb garden.